zzed in and sought honey from the doctor's flowers, and forsook
them again for the fields.

Up there at last, following Mrs. Derrick, came Mr. Linden. With few
reasons asked or told of his sudden appearance; with little said even
of Faith's illness but the mere fact, he went up to the sunlit room and
there staid. Not restingly in Faith's easy-chair, but standing by the
low fire-place, just where he could have the fullest view of her. Mrs.
Derrick came and went,--he never stirred. The sunbeams came and
went--wrapped Faith in their bright folds and lay at his feet, then
began to withdraw altogether. They had shewed him the unwontedly pale
and worn face, and lit up the weary lines in which the lips lay asleep;
and just when the sunbeams had left it all, Mr. Linden became aware
that two dark eyes had softly opened and were gazing at him as if he
were a figure in a dream. So perhaps for a minute he seemed, touched
with the light as he was, which made a glorification in the brown locks
of his hair and gleamed about "pleasant outlines" standing as fixed and
still as a statue. But they were not statue eyes which looked into
hers, and Faith's dreamlike gaze was only for a moment. Then every line
of her face changed with joy--and she sprang up to hide it in Mr.
Linden's arms. He stood still, holding her as one holds some rescued
thing. For Faith was too weak to be just herself, and weariness and
gladness had found their own very unusual expression in an outflow of
nervous tears.

Something seemed to have taken away Mr. Linden's power of words. He did
place her among the cushions again, but if every one of her tears had
been balm to him he could not have let them flow more unchecked.
Perhaps the recollection that they _were_ tears came suddenly; for with
very sudden sweet peremptoriness he said,

"Faith, hush!--Are you so glad to see me?"

She was instantly still. No answer.

"What then?" The intonation was most tender,--so, rather than by any
playfulness, cancelling his own question. She raised her head, she had
dismissed her tears, yet the smile with which her glance favoured him
was a sort of rainbow smile, born of clouds.

"That is a very struggling and misty sunbeam!" said Mr. Linden. "Is
that why I was kept out of its range so long?"

Faith's head drooped. Her forehead lay lightly against him; he could
not see what sort of a smile she wore.

"Whereupon it goes into seclusion altogether. Mignonette, look up and
kiss